Prospective Transfer Student

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>Hi there,</p>

<p>I am a community college student in my twenties. I did not do well in high school, I was lazy. Then I joined the military. I'm out now and I have a 4.0 (for now, we know anything could happen) and am double majoring in math and physics and work full-time. I absolutely love learning about math and science and am into model rocketry (obsessive, if I have the time and money). I plan to tutor mathematics at my school if they hire me (part-time). I want to get into the astronautical engineering program at Caltech, but I want my associate's first (my last math instructor told me that that is best for internships). I don't know of any extracurricular activities for community college students in my area (Inland Empire about an hour from Caltech), but plan to find some. Seeing as Caltech only accepts a litle more than 3% for transfer, am I starting out with a strong application here, or might they look at my age and high school history and say, "Forget this guy,"?</p>

2

<p>It’s always worth a try. Being older and having gone through th military will give you an opportunity to show the strength of maturity to help make up for the immaturity of youth (poor grades). Big question though is, are you prepared (academically) to perform well on the admissions exams?</p>

3

<p>I should be, since the associate’s degrees I’m actually working for are math and physics. But don’t get me wrong, I’m far from prepared just yet, but I should be prepared when the time comes.</p>